Federal Government will take the demand risk for infrastructure projects

Bernardo Figueiredo, CEO of EPL (Empresa de Planejamento e Logística), participated in the “Poder e Política”, a project of UOL and Folha conducted by journalist Fernando Rodrigues. Recording took place in the UOL studio on August 29, 2012 in Brasilia.

Bernardo Figueiredo is 61 years old. He is the CEO of the newly created Empresa de Planejamento e Logística, the EPL.

Figueiredo has a degree in Economics from the University of Brasília. He was director general of the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT – Agência Nacional de Transportes Terrestres) from 2007 to 2012.

Figueiredo began his career in the transport industry in the 70’s as a trainee and then he was an employee of Geipot – the extinct Brazilian Transportation Planning Company.

Expert in the area, he also worked at Siderbras and Valec. He was special advisor to the Civil House when Dilma Rousseff was minister.

During the management of Figueiredo in ANTT, the government matured the project to build the bullet train in partnership with the private sector. Now he will be the strongman of the president ahead of several projects together with the private sector, including roads, railroads, ports and airports.

Folha/UOL: Hello, Web user. Welcome to another “Poder e Política – Entrevista” (Power and Politics – Interviews).

This show is performed by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and the Web portal UOL. The interview is always recorded here in the studio of Grupo Folha, in Brasilia.

The interviewee of this edition of Poder e Política is Bernardo Figueiredo, CEO of the newly established EPL, Empresa de Planejamento e Logística.

Folha/UOL: Hello, Bernardo Figueiredo. Thank you for being here in the studio of Folha in Brasília. I start asking: Brazil has had a Ministry of Labor for many years, had companies in the transport industry, has Valec. In recent years, National Land Transport Agency was created, as well as the regulatory agencies in general. Why Brazil needs another agency such as Empresa de Planejamento e Logística?

Bernardo Figueiredo: It is a pleasure to be here, Fernando. I think maybe the most unanimous thing on the market is the need to create a structure to make the planning of logistics and transportation in general. Since the extinction of Geipot [Brazilian Transportation Planning Company], there is an empty space that was never occupied by anyone.

Folha/UOL: Just for the Web users to understand, the Geipot was created in 1968 or 1969 and lasted until the late 90s, is not it? What was that Geipot?

Bernardo Figueiredo: The Geipot was a group. It started in the 60s as an executive group and in 1973 became a public company. And it was extinguished when the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT – Agência Nacional de Transportes Terrestres) was created in 2002. So, since that time, there is a void and we see very clearly when one will study a program like this that is now being prepared by the government; there is a lack of consistent information, detailed information, and an information history, which maybe is there, dispersed and with different methodologies in different agencies and it is very difficult when one have to consolidate them.

Folha/UOL: But that was not the function of the Ministry of Transport?

Bernardo Figueiredo: No, the Ministry… Who was doing this work was the Department of Politics of the Ministry. But it is a more bureaucratic structure, which was less focused on that.
It has, along with that, many other assignments. So it ends up being something that was not treated appropriately. The Brazilian Court of Audit (TCU) several times pointed out the need to have an information history in order to better target projects. So, the idea is to have a systematic collection of information and, more than that, it is to have a structure that anticipates the problems. The people are very reactive in relation to critical points of the transportation system and the infrastructure in general. So it is necessary to have a structure that is thinking and anticipating the problems so that we can act before they occur.

Folha/UOL: But Bernardo, just to reiterate: is not there an overlap of functions? Because I was wondering, when we think of Brazil, you think in education, in health, in the classic areas where the State acts, they all have a ministry. In this perspective to create a logistics and planning company for transport, then it would not be necessary to create one for health, another for education, because other ministries would not successfully accomplish their mission?

Bernardo Figueiredo: I do not know, because I do not know these areas. In the transport area, this is an essential tool. And this is so…

Folha/UOL: The Ministry can not manage that, in your opinion?

Bernardo Figueiredo: I do not think so. It does not have enough structure to do it. We are expecting, for this initial phase, to have a team of 150 people focused on it. The Ministry does not have this possibility, has no staff, has no way to hire as a company. So I think, well, that is the point… Yesterday I went to CNI [Confederação Nacional da Indústria- National Confederation of Industry] in the event where they were launching a project they had performed. It is unanimous in the private sector the need and opportunity to create a company.

Folha/UOL: Do you know the impression that we – who are outside – have about it? That the State structures and the ministries became very politicized, too bureaucratic and too obsolete in their governance, and the government, which has no way to solve it, begins to create other structures that are leaner, firmer and more robust in order to work effectively in governance of a industry. That’s it.

Bernardo Figueiredo: I respect the way you see it, but I think the Ministry has a coordination function for several areas that are subordinate to it: Valec, Dnit [Departamento Nacional de Infraestrutura de Transportes – National Department of Transport Infrastructure], ANTT, Antaq [Agência Nacional de Transportes Aquaviários- National Waterway Transport Agency], which are under the Ministry of Transport. And you ask it to do this job of coordination, quality control, formulation of a policy, and also [that] a structure be separated from the daily routine to be thinking ahead, thinking about the next steps, supporting the decisions it makes with work… I think it would not be efficient to do this in the Ministry of Transport.

Folha/UOL: I see. The EPL will be a company that will have 150 employees, as you said. Will it stay in Brasília? How will be its structure, working routine?

Bernardo Figueiredo: At first, we will stay only in Brasília. The EPL actually is a transformation of Etav [Empresa de Transporte Ferroviário de Alta Velocidade – Company of High Speed Rail], I mean, it is not the creation of a new company; it is the expansion of the high-speed train company’s scope. We expect to have regional offices. In the case of high-speed trains, they are planned in Campinas and Rio [de Janeiro]. And now it was slightly enlarged. There is the possibility of deploying offices where necessary and when necessary. But today we do not expect to have this need.

Folha/UOL: The Etav will get, let’s say, embedded in the EPL or it will be separated?

Bernardo Figueiredo: No, it is the same company.

Folha/UOL: They are the same?

Bernardo Figueiredo: Yes, this is the same company.

Folha/UOL: It will be like a department within the EPL that will take care of that?

Fonte: Uol/Folha de S. Paulo